UKH

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/31/wild-camping-dartmoor-c...

Great news, hopefully it will be introduced as a national thing with the right to roam legislation which Labour are proposing.

Excellent news. Now let's hope Starmer doesn't do another U-turn.

Excellent news. It did look as though the Open Spaces Society had provided a good argument/interpretation. 

Great news!!!

Very happy to hear this, might have to go down to celebrate

This is the sort of thing the OSS are very good at, considering their size and profile.  The BMC could learn from them

Fantastic! A belligerent part of me is tempted to show Darwall the power of the Streisand Effect by making a trip down there especially to camp on his land.

Um....

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/dartmoor-national-park-donations-appeal-wild-camp-...

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/bmc-vision-for-the-future-of-wild-camping

Not sure why you are getting dislikes for this? He u turns often enough! It wouldn't be the first time that Labour has got in on the back of a promise they reneged on... (Said as someone who has always voted labour, other than one green councillor).

 Presumably because nobody wants this thread to become a dumpster fire on the scale of this one...

https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/politics/starmers_honesty_problem-761323

Good news.

Can they try appealing it further or is it game over.

Interesting choice of lead image from the BBC's report. That's definitely not Dartmoor!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-66341778

Ah, I am not part of the Politics forum so I didn't see that one!

I can't place the photo but very definitely not Dartmoor!

In theory they can apply to the Supreme Court. If I understand correctly, they would have to get permission from the Court of Appeal to apply.  They could do so on the basis that this is a point of law of general public importance which ought to be heard by the Supreme Court.  However the CoA's judgement was that this turned on "a perfectly natural use of language" and they would have to make a very strong case that this was an incorrect approach. 

Plenty of people go camping for its own sake, not merely as part of another activity, and the walk may simply be to get to a place to camp, rather than the camp facilitating the walk as the first judge thought. The "natural use of language" argument seems entirely reasonable to me.  I guess we'll see, but I would be disappointed and surprised if they manage to appeal, and even more surprised if they succeed.

This decision is important not only for Dartmoor but because it provides legal confirmation that camping is part of outdoor recreation.  Should the question ever arise whether a different outdoor activity is "outdoor recreation" the natural use of language basis established in this case might well be the basis for deciding it.

AFAIK yes, they could appeal to the Supreme Court but they'd need permission from either the Supreme Court or Court of Appeal to do so. I am, however, not a lawyer.

Somebody must have told them - it's now of a horse that looks like it could be by a granite outcrop. It's a nice original photo though - looks a bit like Stickle Tarn above Langdale

Glad I copied the original so people would be less confused by my pedantry. Google Lens pointed me to it being Angle Tarn in Borrowdale:

https://www.lakesguides.co.uk/html/albums/BPF57.htm

Ah yes, the old Beeb photo didn't show that track which would have made it easier to locate

But that's the point. The OSS don't have the membership or the media clout of the BMC, they do one thing, and they do it very well. I know, I've been on the receiving end over stock fence on a common. They have a single focus, the tenacity of a hungry terrier, and possibly most importantly, they are a statutory consulted on matters of access and enclosure.

They have a very knowledgeable ex-policy/legislation writer who is generally right! 

I've been to one of their AGMs - perhaps the most lively interesting AGM I've ever been to

The BMC worked with them and other concerned bodies and made strong media statements: it was a daft point to make.

I have no criticism with the OSS but arguably you undersell them on media clout and on overall clout.

It'll be moot after a few more terms of either the Tories or Labour in government; the entire countryside will need to be covered with houses in order to meet the demand created by their shared fetish for artificial population growth.

Yes that’s Dartmoor.

That’s a horse by the far left hand end of Low Man with Saddle Tor and Rippon Tor behind.

As in the photo that’s now on the BBC page to which you referred not the original one.

Good news.

However many more people previously unaware of the possibility of wild camping have now been made aware on national TV etc. Some of them may be irresponsible with fires, litter et al, and the very things some landowners originally complained about could become more commonplace.

The law of unintended consequechuas

And if the magnitude of the problems became too great there might even be renewed calls to ban wild camping. Hope I'm being needlessly pessimistic.

You could argue that this has been the case since the national parks were created, the Kinder Trespasses, the Glen Tilt trespasses, the emancipation of the working classes, the English Civil War, the Peasants' Revolt or any other way point in the evolution of social freedoms.

An obscure Inca who fought the Spaniards for the right to wild camp in the Andes?

Or a throwaway pop-up tent offering convenient temporary cortez ?